


What is love?

by orphan_account



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Sexy Zone
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fuma is not sure what love is, but maybe, just for him, love is that one special person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is love?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cortney (bc she had a tough day)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cortney+%28bc+she+had+a+tough+day%29).



> This was a spontaneous idea I had today while watching "Ashita, Mama ga inai". I don't really like how it turned out, but I hope you will.

“Look, Fuma, aren’t these cute?!” Maiko called, picking up tiny baby shoes and holding them out for me to see. 

I only cleared my throat, not knowing what to answer. I did not want to have this discussion again, not here in the middle of a packed store with too many people to listen in on us.

Maiko sighed, lowering the shoes again with an annoyed pout. 

“When will you finally change your mind?” she complained. “We are going to marry soon. Do you really want to stay childless forever?!”

“You know exactly why I think I wouldn’t be a good father” I murmured quietly, turning for the shelf with adult shoes, hoping she would let it drop. 

“Just because we never had a family, doesn’t mean we can’t ever have one!” she scolded, hitting me with her purse. “I want to have with you what I have always been missing, what’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing” I said in a low voice, trying to think of something to say to end this discussion, for now. 

“All I want is love, Fuma” she sighed, searching for my hand and entwining our fingers. 

I kept quiet, feeling guilty as I thought that I did not even know what love was anymore. 

***

I did not remember much from my early childhood. There were stray images of my mother waving as she left through the door, and my father shouting at me… and loneliness. An empty apartment with nothing to eat and me crying myself to sleep. 

The first real thing I remembered were the social workers taking me with them. This time it was me shouting at them because I did not want to leave home. How would my mother find me if I wasn’t in the apartment?

“Your mother can get you from the orphanage whenever she returns” a nice elderly woman said, her smile soft but her hands on my wrist firm like iron. “But you can’t stay here alone, Fuma-Kun. Someone has to take care of you.”

“I DON’T WANT TO!” I cried, my three-year-old self unable to comprehend that she was actually right. For me, there had been no one else but my parents. Parting from the only world I had known had scared me. 

The orphanage was huge and scary, and i kept crying and screaming until I was exhausted, but still too worked up to sleep. 

I was too tired to fight it when the boy I was to share my room with from now on crawled into my bed. He was a little older than me and it scared me because I had never had much contact with other children, never having been allowed to go out. But his smile was soft and he looked a little funny with overgrown front teeth and big eyes, reminding me of a squirrel, and it distracted me enough to keep from screaming again. 

“Hi, I am Kento” the boy whispered, and I just nodded hesitantly. “The cook has been saying your Mama has left you?”

“She will come pick me up!” I said indignantly, my voice a little too loud for the quiet time of the institution, and Kento made a face, shushing me softly.

“Okay, okay” he hissed. “Sorry!”

I only glared at him, hostile to everyone and everything, but Kento only smiled again, reaching out to ruffle my hair.

“Your name is Fuma, right?” he whispered. “It’s not so bad here, Fuma. The food is good and the kids are nice and Momo-nee-chan keeps sneaking us sweets from the kitchen. You can just stay here and wait until your Mama picks you up.”

I nodded slowly, eyeing him warily, but his smile and the heat of his body were somehow calming, reminding me of how tired I really was. 

“You should sleep now” Kento whispered. “Tomorrow I can introduce all the important people to you.”

“Will you stay?” I asked without thinking, and Kento smiled as he shifted a little closer.

“Okay” he agreed. 

I nodded as I closed my eyes, and only seconds later I had drifted off to a dreamless sleep. 

Kento was still there when I woke up the next morning, even though he was scolded by the supervisor for sleeping in my bed, but as he grinned at me in embarrassment between their lectures, I realized that I had just found my very first friend. 

***

The orphanage was not that bad, like Kento had predicted. The older kids were still a little scary, but Kento gathered just the right kids for me to get to know, gentle elementary school kids and one middle school girl that kept pinching my cheeks but left half of her mitarashi dango to me, so I decided that I liked her. 

I especially liked Kento, though. He was only a year older than me, but to me, he was almost like this fairy tale creature that seemed to know everything and could do everything, and before I knew it, I had become something like his shadow, never leaving his side. Kento did not seem to mind, though - he was always smiling and taking my hand, and on the nights when I got homesick and cried myself to sleep, he would crawl into my bed and comfort me. 

It did not take long, though, until I was supposed to be moved to foster parents. 

“The younger ones have better chances” I heard one of the older kids say. “Plus he is cute, I knew he would not stay here for long.”

“Poor Kento-Kun, though” Miria said, one of the elementary students Kento had introduced me to. “He has been here for ages and no one ever asks for him. And his roommates keep coming and going. It’s not fair.”

“That’s because he is a weirdo.”

“I find him cute!”

“He is a weirdo! Wait till he starts school, you will see.”

I think Miria was about to say something more, but she cut herself off the moment she saw me. I had only glared, and in the next moment, my glass of water had been emptied over the other girl’s head. 

I was sent to bed that night without dinner, but I thought that it was worth it. 

“I don’t want to leave from here” I told Kento when he had crawled into bed with me later that night, sensing that I was upset. “I don’t need a new family. My Mama will come get me.”

Kento had just nodded, and when I entwined our fingers under the blanket, I thought quietly that I did not want to leave Kento behind, either.

I did not like my new foster parents. They asked me to call them Mama and Papa and were all in all too close in too short of a time, and I was not ready to deal with the whole family dynamic I had never known before.

The day before I was supposed to move in with them, I kept crying, making Kento look at me with big sad eyes and bring me sweets as he tried to comfort me.

“I don’t want to go, Kento” I whined. “I hate them. Do something.”

Kento, only 4 year-old himself and with a heart bigger than anyone else I had ever met, had come to the only conclusion he could, and an hour later, our Sentai Ranger backpacks had been packed and we had sneaked out of the orphanage. 

It was winter and after only an hour of strolling around outside, Kento’s felt like ice against mine and his nose was bright red, making him look even funnier than usual. 

We ended up going into a convenience store to warm up, and a woman working at the counter had immediately called the police, which had brought us back to the orphanage. 

The adoption was cancelled after that, and instead, a different kid was taken in. The supervisors kept scolding us, but I could not help but feel relieved. 

***

Kento and I were inseparable even as the years passed. I still had no desire to be adopted, and Kento did not seem to be bothered to try either, apparently content with his life at the orphanage. When I asked him once if he didn’t miss his Mama, Kento had just smiled and told me that he had never had a Mama, and that you couldn’t miss what you never had. 

Things changed as soon as Kento went to school, though. Kento had always been laughing, his smile so bright and so unlike my whiny self, so when I found him in our room one afternoon after lunch, dirty and crying, I did not know what to do. 

“What happened?” I called, shaking him, but Kento just wiped his face and tried to smile.

“Nothing” he lied, his voice weak and shaky, and I would have been a fool to buy it. 

Kento kept coming home upset and in various states of disorder each day, from there on. One day, his clothes were wet, and the next, they were ripped and he was yelled at by the supervisors for not taking care of his things.

The next day, he did not come home at all, and when I asked Mirai what this was about, she told me that Kento was being bullied at school. 

“It happens to a lot of kids from the orphanage” she said airily. “Especially to those too soft to stand up for themselves. And Kento-Kun has always been too nice.”

Momo-nee-chan was the one who went to look for him when I would not let it drop, and when she finally brought him home, he was bleeding and his hand was bandaged. 

“They locked him into a cupboard” she had groaned, leaving him in the room with me to alert the supervisors.

“Why did you not tell me that the other kids are mean to you?” I had asked, watching as Kento hugged his knees to his chest. 

Kento did not answer, and we just sat in silence for a while until I took a tissue and wetted it with my water bottle, reaching out to wipe his face. Kento hissed when the cloth came into contact with his wounds. 

“I hate them” I announced finally, making Kento look up at me. “I hate everyone who is mean to you.”

When Kento started crying again at my words, I did not quite know what to do, but this time, it was me sleeping in his bed as he cried himself to sleep. 

The next day, I fled kindergarten to go to Kento’s school. It was not actually that far a walk, and when I arrived, Kento’s class apparently had a play time on the school grounds, only no teacher was to be seen anywhere near to Kento being kicked by a group of five boys. 

I did not remember very well what had happened next, and the story had become such a legend within the orphanage over the years that everyone changed it a little while retelling it, but apparently, I had grabbed a baseball bat one of the boys had dropped and had attacked them, screaming at them to not hurt Kento or I would kill them. 

It turned out to be a huge deal: The parents of the kids that had bullied Kento were apparently rich or something, and they complained, making it seem like it was all Kento’s and my fault. 

It was agreed that Kento would change schools, and no one ever dared to adopt any of us ever again from that point on, but I was fine with both of that. Kento seemed to be getting along with his new classmates better than the old ones (if only down to the legend of his scary younger brother beating everyone up that would dare to bully him), and it was not like any of us wanted a new family anyways.

“We can just stay together forever” I had shrugged, snatching one of the candies Momo-nee-chan had sneaked to us. “Just the two of us. We don’t need a family.”

“But what are we going to do when we are too old to live here in the orphanage?” Kento frowned. “The other boys kept telling me I will never amount to anything because I have no parents. That I am worthless, and that no one would miss me when I am gone.”

“They are stupid!” I called. “ _I_ would miss you. Also we will be richer and more powerful than their parents when we grow up. One day we will have their children thrown out for bullying others.”

“Miria says that you need to be very smart to be rich” Kento murmured. “That’s why Momo-nee-chan is always studying.”

“I am smart” I said indignantly. “I am going to study hard and show them.”

“Okay” Kento smiled. “Then I will study hard, too!”

“Pinky promise?” I nodded, holding out my little finger, and Kento grinned as he joined it with his. 

***

We stuck to our promise, working hard at school, and over the years, we grew to be the kids with the best grades of our year. I might have had a little of a head start, though, because I kept looking at Kento’s things when he was studying, and whenever I had trouble to understand something he would help me. 

Kento and I kept being inseparable even as the time passed. It was not like I did not make other friends - actually, it seemed to come easy to me, unlike Kento, who was more of a loner, which was ironic because when I first met him it was actually the other way around, or maybe it had been just me who had always thought that he was bright and easy to talk to - but no matter who I met, Kento always stayed different. Like family, maybe, though I did not understand enough of the word to be able to use it. 

Things changed drastically, though, when Kento graduated and got a scholarship to study at a university in the United States. I was happy for him because he had always wanted to go, hanging up photos of L.A. or New York and whining about wanting to see them, but it made me feel a little helpless because I could barely remember life without Kento.

“I will write every day!” Kento ensured me. “And who knows, maybe next year, you can join, too! You are smart enough!”

“You can bet that I will!” I groaned, elbowing him into the side. “We have a promise, after all, and it won’t work if you are an ocean away!” 

Kento laughed, and I tried hard to not be depressed about the thought that I would not see this laugh every day from now on. 

I brought Kento to the airport and his eyes were shining in excitement and his smile when he waved me goodbye was engraved in my memory, not only because it was the last time I had ever seen him.

Because after that, all contact to Kento ceased. At first, I thought that something had happened, but the supervisor told me that Kento had called to tell him that he had arrived in New York safely, and from then on, I had known that something was wrong, because why would Kento call them and not me?

I tried to write him mails, but he never answered. He did not take his Japanese phone so I could not call him, and I felt stupid asking the supervisors for his address. I kept telling myself that maybe he was just busy, or maybe his mails had been lost, or _my_ mails had been lost since the internet at the orphanage could be a little fishy sometimes, but when it went on for months, I could not help but think that Kento had thrown me away, just like my parents had. 

I fell into a hole after that, doing nothing but studying, not talking to anyone, just staying in my room and shutting the world off.

It was Maiko who had approached me at that time. Maiko had joined the orphanage at 14 after her mother had died, and she had joined my class, meaning I had known her before and had talked to her every now and then, but never more than to anyone else. But suddenly, Maiko was everywhere, apparently firm and pulling me out of the grave I had dug myself, and it helped a little because slowly, I forgot about Kento, focusing on my own life again. 

When Maiko confessed to me, I just went along with it, not wanting to turn her down because really, she had done an awful lot for me and if that was what I could do to pay her back, I would. 

It was hard for me to be invested in a relationship, though. I felt like after Kento had left, all my emotions had numbed. Maybe I was unable to feel love or true affection. It would not surprise me, after everything that had happened in my past. 

I did not apply for the scholarship Kento had gotten, like originally planned. Instead, I passed the entrance exam to Keio University. Maiko got a job in a small supermarket, and with the little funds we had, we moved together into a small apartment at the borders of Tokyo. 

I was very focused on my studies, finding my purpose in the field of research and being employed by the university after graduating. 

I had promised Maiko to marry her as soon as I was earning enough money to support both of us, and I had no problem with marriage, seeing that it would technically change nothing about the life I had lived in the past couple of years, but lately, Maiko had start talking about babies and family, and I was definitely not ready for that, and was not sure if I would ever be. 

I had never encountered anything like parental love in my life, and even Kento, who had been the closest I had ever had to a family, had turned out to leave me in the end. I was not sure how to be a father, or how to be emotionally invested into a person like that. It scared me, and I did not want it. 

Maiko was different, though, and I tried my best to make her happy because she was not to blame for my emotional incapability, but this was one step I could not make. 

Only she did not seem to understand that. 

“One day you will come around, Fuma” she murmured, smiling at the baby shoes once more as we left the store. “You are actually as desperate for a family as me, you just don’t realize it.”

I kept quiet, not wanting to fight again, and we just strolled the streets in silence. 

***

“Kikuchi-San!” the professor called as I took his call the next morning in my way to work. “Would you please come straight to my office once you arrive, I want to introduce your partner for the next project to you!”  
“Okay” I agreed, my steps speeding up a little as the university buildings came into view. 

I was excited for this project because it was supposed to be huge and international, and I was smiling as I entered the offices, knocking at the professors office twice, waiting until he called me in.

I pushed the door open, and froze as my eyes zoomed in on the guy sitting across the professor, turning to look up at as well, and big brown eyes widening when his gaze met mine. 

“Fuma” Kento whispered, and for a moment, I felt dizzy, but then I realized that I was not breathing properly, so I made an effort to get some air into my lungs.

“You know each other?” the professor asked in confusion, looking from Kento to me, and it was all I could do to nod, my enthusiasm about the project gone within seconds. 

***

“So… You went to Keio, after all” Kento murmured as he took his place on the empty desk across from me. His voice was thin and fragile, the way it became when he was nervous, I noted. I hated myself a little for being able to tell so well even though years had passed without any contact. “I wondered what became of you.”

I only made a non-committal noise, turning on my laptop. 

“So… How are you?” he asked quietly, and I wanted to scream at him because what did he care _now,_ after all this time without even answering a freaking mail?!

“Fine” was all I said instead, not being able to add: “I am engaged. I think you still remember Maiko?”

“...Oh” Kento murmured, and there was something off about his smile, but I did not look close enough to be able to point out what exactly.

I did not care, I reminded myself. Kento was part of the past. 

“Congrats” he said finally. “I had no idea you were that close.”

“It happened after you were gone” I shrugged, and I could not help the tone of bitterness in my voice even if I tried. 

“Oh” Kento murmured, and for a moment, no one said a word, before Kento asked: “Is that the reason why you didn’t answer any of my mails, or calls?”

I frowned, freezing in my moves, before glaring at him.

“ _What mails?!”_ I demanded. “I wrote you _tons_ of messages throughout the first couple of months, but there was never a reply!”

“I - I never got any messages from you!” Kento stuttered, looking so utterly confused that I knew immediately that he was telling the truth. “I wrote to you so often, and called a couple of times, but it went straight to voicemail, and even if I left a message there was never a response! I even called at the orphanage, but someone else took it, and-”

Kento held in, his eyes widening. 

“What?!” I asked testily.

“ _Maiko_ took it” Kento murmured. “She… told me she would tell you that I called, and give you my number.”

I blinked, staring at Kento incredulous, trying to count one and one together. Maiko had approached me only after Kento had left… And suddenly, she had been with me all the time, and… 

I turned to my laptop, quickly opening my old email account, and Kento only frowned at me as I went through my spam filters, finally finding what I was searching for. 

“She blocked you from my account!” I called. “That’s why I never got a single mail from you!”

“But… how?” Kento murmured, standing and crossing the room to look at my screen, too. “And why did I not get any mails from you, this makes no sense… I…” 

“Check your account” I demanded, getting out my phone, going through my blocked numbers, not surprised when I found an American number among them. “Damn, this is so fucked up!”

“She blocked you at my account, too” Kento whispered. “She must have planned this even before I left!”

“And I was so stupid to believe she just wanted to comfort me!” I groaned, resisting the urge to throw my phone against the opposite wall. “When she actually kept close to make sure you would not get to me!”

“And I kept wondering all these years what I had done” Kento whispered, and I looked up, for the first time today really looking at him, and it awakened things in me that I had not thought I would feel ever again. 

***

I confronted Maiko as soon as I got home. At first she denied everything, but then she finally burst into tears and started yelling, confessing everything.

“You never saw me!” she called. “I kept trying to get your attention and all you ever paid attention to was Nakajima-Kun, so I just snapped! I knew that him going to America was my chance, so I-”

“Do you know what you have _done?!_ ” I called, balling my shaking hands into fists to keep myself from doing something I might regret later. “All this time I thought I was emotionally broken or something because you separated me from the one person thatmeant something to me!”

“I did it because I love you!” she screamed. 

“Love?!” I repeated. “I don’t know what love is, but surely not this!”

She let out a sob, and I forced myself to leave the room. I fled into the bedroom, opening the first bag I could find and starting to throw clothes into it.

“What are you doing?!” Maiko demanded.

“Leaving” I yelled. “I am so done with you!”

“What am I supposed to do without you?!” she demanded. “I built my whole life around you!”  
“Just fucking stop using your past as an excuse to make others take care of you!” I groaned. “The past is no excuse to stop trying for a better future, damnit! You never understood that, did you?!”

“Not everyone is able to think like you!” Maiko murmured.

“I don’t care about everyone else!” I groaned, zipping up my bag and turning to look at her again. “I cared about _one_ person that understood, and you took that person away from me! I will _never_ forgive you for that!” 

With that, I pushed past her, leaving her life for once and for all, and feeling a little like I had shaken off my shackles.

***

I ended up at Kento’s place, which should not have surprised me because I did not actually have any other people to rely on. Also, Kento had always been the one to catch me, and this was no exception. If anything, he seemed happy to have me there, and I found my mind clouded with emotions I had long forgotten, making me want to sit in a corner and cry as if I was 3 years old again. 

Kento prepared his couch for me for the night, but when I could not seem to find sleep I just found myself crawling into bed with him, sighing at the comforting, familiar warmth of his body. 

“And I thought I was emotionally broken” I whispered as Kento squirmed closer to me, so much that I could finally make out his face in the darkness. 

“You were never broken” Kento scoffed, his fingers finding mine and lacing through them. “You always had a big heart, Fuma.”

“Not as big as yours” I murmured, and Kento chuckled. 

“If you are emotionally broken, I am the same” he said finally. “At least you’ve had a relationship, whereas I…”

I hissed at the word ‘relationship’, but squeezed his hand when he did not continue. 

“I did not feel anything for Maiko, despite being with her. So this is not something-”

“I am not interested in girls” Kento said simply, and I blinked, trying to process his words. 

“So… you are interested in boys?” I checked, frowning when he shook his head. 

“Not in general” he said, and his voice sounded choked. “Just one.”

Before I was able to ask any further, though, Kento had crossed the distance between us, and his lips were on mine. 

It was like an explosion, my mind full of things I had not known I _could_ feel, and maybe it was because I had been emotionally numbed for such a long time that everything felt so intense and real, almost as if my mind was raw to the sensations. 

It was all I could do to to melt into the kiss and hold onto Kento as I let everything wash over me. I knew that I was not breathing properly, but I could imagine more important things than oxygen as I clung onto Kento.

When he finally pulled away, I felt dazed, and I had to force myself to take a deep breath.

“Sorry” he whispered. “I have been already feeling these things before I left, and when you didn’t answer my mails I thought maybe you had noticed, and that is why-”

“Shut up” I breathed, and when Kento bit his lip in desperation, I reached out to pull him against me again. 

It was addicting, his lips against mine, his body against mine, and somehow, this seemed to be what I had always been searching for, this key to what I had been missing. 

We kissed until we had no air left in our lungs, and even then, I held Kento as close as I could, smiling when he rested his head against my shoulder. 

“So this explains why I couldn’t find love when you were gone” I murmured, squeezing him in my arms. “It finally makes sense.”

“Sorry for leaving then” he whispered. “If I had known-”

“It’s okay” I sighed. “You are back.”

Kento chuckled, and I grinned because seriously, I should have known that Kento would have never left me behind, because he had sworn to stay from the day I had met him. 

Maybe, I figured, I did not have to understand what love was. Maybe love was not a feeling to find in others, like I had always thought, because for me, it was a person that brought it out inside of me. 

For me, love was Kento, and that was enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, and happy FumaKen Day :D


End file.
